I, A Non-Vegan, Tried The Most Popular Vegan Bakes On Pinterest And Here's What Happened

Are butter and eggs really necessary?

Hi, I'm Jasmin, and I spend a lot of my free time baking.

Jasmin @Jasmin__Kaur

Blueberry crumb cake! One of my favourite things I’ve made. A crunchy topping of brown sugar and cinnamon with a surprisingly light sponge underneath https://t.co/8hjp2d8aMs

06:07 PM - 16 Sep 2018

I took it up about a year ago and since then it's been non-stop cookies, cakes, and brownies every week. My favourite thing about baking is getting to see other people enjoy the food that I've made. But as veganism is growing in popularity, not everyone I bake for can try my recipes when they include two sticks of butter and a whole lot of milk.

So I decided to set myself a challenge and make my next bakes completely vegan. I headed to Pinterest (obviously) for inspiration and noticed that a lot of the recipes I found happened to be vegan versions of bakes that everyone already knows and loves. This seemed like a good place to start.

Pinterest

I decided to make three bakes – chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and a lemon loaf cake. I was curious to see how they would compare to their non-vegan counterparts, but I was also interested to find out straightforward (or not) vegan baking would be. Here's how I got on...

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Jasmin Nahar / BuzzFeed

The recipe: This recipe has been shared LOADS of times on Pinterest and has tons of positive reviews. I appreciated that there weren’t any ingredients (bar the coconut sugar) that were hard to get – I already had pretty much everything else in my kitchen. It’s a one-bowl recipe and extremely straightforward. The lack of butter and eggs in this was substituted by puréed avocado and melted coconut oil.

The process: After the avocado was puréed, it was just a matter of mixing in the oil, and then adding in all the other ingredients. Like I said, easy! The coconut sugar, mixed with the coconut oil and the coconut milk, meant these smelt AMAZING but not very brownie-like. The batter wasn’t quite as pourable as the one I usually make, but it was easy enough to spread around the tray. The recipe said to bake them between 15 and 20 minutes but as I wanted them a little bit on the fudgy side, I opted for 15.

Jasmin Nahar / BuzzFeed

The results: These proved to be pretty popular with everyone – some couldn’t tell the difference between this and a regular brownie, and I got lots of comments on how light and moist the sponge was. However, a few people mentioned that it didn’t taste quite like a brownie and I'm inclined to agree with them. I did feel that they had a strong coconut aftertaste, which maybe isn’t that surprising considering the amount of coconut ingredients involved. The texture was very light, and while I opted for a lower bake time to try and get it fudgy, it definitely had a cakey texture. To me, it tasted less like a brownie and more like a coconutty chocolate sheet cake, which is still tasty but not what I was going for!

Overall rating: 3.5/5

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Jasmin Nahar / BuzzFeed

The recipe: in place of dairy, this recipe uses coconut milk, solid coconut oil, and unsweetened applesauce. Unsweetened applesauce is SUPER hard to get hold of in the UK, but after checking online it seemed that an unsweetened apple purée should be a fine substitution. I was a bit confused by the recipe saying repeatedly that the coconut oil should be completely solid, but went with it. I couldn’t get hold of vegan-friendly chocolate chips either, so bought some high-quality vegan chocolate bars and chopped them into chunks instead.

The process: While mixing the coconut oil and sugar I really had my doubts about this recipe because it was so incredibly difficult to beat the two together, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that once the dry ingredients were in, it did look pretty much like any other cookie dough! I tried a bit of the dough batter before cooking it and was overwhelmed by how coconutty it was. I could also see solid flecks of coconut oil in the batter, which wasn’t great.

Jasmin Nahar / BuzzFeed

The results: A few comments under this recipe mentioned the cookies turning out puffy and cake-like, and not the like the ones shown in the recipe photos. That's exactly what happened to me. They hardly flattened at all, in fact I wouldn’t really describe them as cookies. The taste was fine albeit still coconut-tinged. They lacked the butteriness you’d normally associate with a good chocolate chip cookie, and most of the people who tried it agreed that while it didn’t taste bad, it didn’t taste much like a cookie either.

Overall rating: 2/5

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Jasmin Nahar / BuzzFeed

The recipe: I LOVED how straightforward and easy-to-acquire these ingredients were. The only thing I couldn’t get was oat milk, but the recipe said that any plant-based milk was fine so I opted for unsweetened almond milk instead.

The process: Putting this batter together took no time at all. Mix the oil, sugar, zest, milk and lemon juice, and then fold in the dry ingredients. Done! Two bowls, minimal mess and a lovely, smooth pourable batter. Even before it was in oven it smelled like it would taste good.

Jasmin Nahar / BuzzFeed

The results: This tasted incredible. The cake wasn't dry at all – it was super moist and the sponge was sweet while still tasting of lemon. Overall it was definitely the strongest of the bunch, and I was a big fan of the tangy icing. Someone mentioned that it had a slight baking soda taste, and another said that the sponge was little more rubbery than you'd get from a classic recipe, but the general consensus was that this is incredibly close to a non-vegan lemon loaf, and is a damn good cake – regardless of whether it's vegan or not. In fact, I like it so much that whenever I want to make a lemon loaf I'll be using this recipe from now on.

Overall rating: 5/5

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While it did feel like something was missing from some of these bakes, it's really not put me off trying more vegan baking. The lemon cake was a complete success, and I'm sure with some tweaks the brownies would have been more brownie-like. Vegan baking definitely doesn't have to be intimidating, complex, or overly expensive, it's just about experimenting and finding the perfect recipes, even if you make a few cakey cookies along the way.